The elfdump utility symbolically dumps selected parts of the specified object file(s). The options allow specific portions of the file to be displayed.

The elfdump utility is similar in function to the dump(1) utility. Thedump utility offers an older and less user-friendly interface thanelfdump, although dump might be more appropriate for certain uses such as in shell scripts.

Archive files, produced by ar(1), can also be inspected with elfdump. In this case, each object within the archive is processed using the options supplied.

elfdump can display the ELF header, program header array, and section header array for any ELF object. It is also able to display the data found in the following types of sections:

Interpreter and global offset table sections do not have a special ELF section type, but are instead implemented as SHT_PROGBITS sections with well known names (.interp and .got respectively). elfdump is able to recognize and display these special sections.

Sections used for stack unwinding and exception handling can have the ELF section type SHT_PROGBITS, or SHT_AMD64_UNWIND, depending on the compiler and platform involved. These sections are recognized by name: .eh_frame,.eh_frame_hdr, and .exception_ranges.

When run without options to narrow the information displayed, elfdump displays all available information for each object.

For a complete description of the displayed information, refer to theLinkerandLibrariesGuide.

-H Dumps the contents of the .SUNW_cap hardware and software capabilities section.

-i Dumps the contents of the .interp section.

-I index-expr Qualifies the sections or program headers to examine with a specific index or index range. For example, the third section header in a file can be displayed using:

example% elfdump -c -I 3 filename

An index-expr can be a single non-negative integer value that specifies a specific item, as shown in the previous example. Alternatively, an index-expr can consist of two such values separated by a colon (:), indicating a range of items. The following example displays the third, fourth, and fifth program headers in a file:

example% elfdump -p -I 3:5 filename

When specifying an index range, the second value can be omitted to indicate the final item in the file. For example, the following statement lists all section headers from the tenth to the end:

example% elfdump -c -I 10: filename

See Matching Options for additional information about the matching options (-I, -N, -T).

-n Dumps the contents of .note sections. By default,elfdump displays this data without interpretation in hexadecimal form. Core files are an exception. A subset of the core file notes described in core(4) are interpreted by elfdump and displayed in a high level format: NT_PRSTATUS, NT_PRPSINFO, NT_PLATFORM, NT_AUXV, NT_ASRS, NT_PSTATUS, NT_PSINFO, NT_PRCRED, NT_UTSNAME, NT_LWPSTATUS, NT_LWPSINFO, NT_PRPRIV, NT_PRPRIVINFO, NT_CONTENT, and NT_ZONENAME.

-N name Qualifies the sections or program headers to examine with a specific name. For example, in a file that contains more than one symbol table, the .dynsym symbol table can be displayed by itself using:

example% elfdump -N .dynsym filename

ELF program headers do not have names. If the -p option is specified, name refers to the program header type, and the behavior of the -N option is identical to that of the -T option. For example, the program header that identifies an interpreter can be displayed using:

example% elfdump -p -N PT_INTERP filename

See Matching Options for additional information about the matching options (-I, -N, -T).

-O osabi Specifies the Operating System ABI to apply when interpreting the object. osabi can be the name or value of any of the ELFOSABI_ constants found in/usr/include/sys/elf.h. For convenience, the ELFOSABI_ prefix may be omitted from these names. Two osabi values are fully supported: solaris is the native ABI of the Solaris operating system. none is the generic ELF ABI. Support for other operating system ABIs may be incomplete or missing. Items for which strings are unavailable are displayed in numeric form.

If -O is not used, and the object ELF header specifies a non-generic ABI, the ABI specified by the object is used. If the object specifies the generic ELF ABI,elfdump searches for a .note.ABI-tag section, and if found, identifies the object as having the linux ABI. Otherwise, an object that specifies the generic ELF ABI is assumed to conform to the solaris ABI.

-p Dumps the program headers. Individual program headers can be specified using the matching options (-I, -N,-T). See Matching Options for additional information.

The -p and -w options are mutually exclusive. Only one of these options can be used in a given elfdump invocation

-P Generate and use alternative section header information based on the information from the program headers, ignoring any section header information contained in the file. If the file has no section headers a warning message is printed and this option is automatically selected. Section headers are not used by the system to execute a program. As such, a malicious program can have its section headers stripped or altered to provide misleading information. In contrast the program headers must be accurate for the program to be runnable. The use of synthetic section header information derived from the program headers allows files with altered section headers to be examined.

-r Dumps the contents of the .rel[a] relocation sections.

-s Dumps the contents of the .SUNW_ldynsym, .dynsym, and.symtab symbol table sections. For archives, the archive symbol table is also dumped. Individual sections can be specified with the matching options (-I, -N, -T). An archive symbol table can be specified using the special section name -N ARSYM.

In the case of core files, the shndx field has the value "unknown" since the field does not contain the valid values.

In addition to the standard symbol table information, the version definition index of the symbol is also provided under the ver heading.

See Matching Options for additional information about the matching options (-I, -N, -T).

-S Dumps the contents of the .SUNW_ldynsym and .dynsym symbol table sections sorted in the order given by the.SUNW_dynsymsort and .SUNW_dyntlssort symbol sort sections. Thread Local Storage (TLS) symbols are sorted by offset. Regular symbols are sorted by address. Symbols not referenced by the sort sections are not displayed.

-T type Qualifies the sections or program headers to examine with a specific type. For example, in a file that contains more than one symbol table, the .dynsym symbol table can be displayed by itself using:

example% elfdump -T SHT_DYNSYM filename

The value of type can be a numeric value, or any of theSHT_ symbolic names defined in /usr/include/sys/elf.h. The SHT_ prefix is optional, and type is case insensitive. Therefore, the above example can also be written as:

example% elfdump -T dynsym filename

If the -p option is specified, type refers to the program header type, which allows for the display of specific program headers. For example, the program header that identifies an interpreter can be displayed using:

example% elfdump -p -T PT_INTERP filename

The value of type can be a numeric value, or any of thePT_ symbolic names defined in /usr/include/sys/elf.h. The PT_ prefix is optional, and type is case insensitive. Therefore, the above example can also be written as:

example% elfdump -p -T interp filename

See Matching Options for additional information about the matching options (-I, -N, -T).

-u Dumps the contents of sections used for stack frame unwinding and exception processing.

-v Dumps the contents of the .SUNW_version version sections.

-w file Writes the contents of sections which are specified with the matching options (-I, -N, -T) to the named file. For example, extracting the .text section of a file can be carried out with:

example% elfdump -w text.out -N .text filename

See Matching Options for additional information about the matching options (-I, -N, -T).

The -p and -w options are mutually exclusive. Only one of these options can be used in a given elfdump invocation

The options -I, -N, and -T are collectively referred to as the matchingoptions. These options are used to narrow the range of program headers or sections to examine, by index, name, or type.

The exact interpretation of the matching options depends on the other options used:

o When used with the -p option, the matching options reference program headers. -I refers to program header indexes. -T refers to program header types. As program headers do not have names, the -N option behaves identically to -T for program headers.

o The matching options are used to select sections by index, name, or type when used with any of the options -c, -g, -m,-n, -r, -s, -S, -u, or -w.

o If matching options are used alone without any of the options-c, -g, -m, -n, -p-r, -s, -S, -u, or -w, then elfdump examines each object, and displays the contents of any sections matched.

Any number and type of matching option can be mixed in a given invocation of elfdump. In this case, elfdump displays the superset of all items matched by any of the matching options used. This feature allows for the selection of complex groupings of items using the most convenient form for specifying each item.